Spring has sprung?

Spring has been a little slow to arrive this year. It keeps teasing us with a nice day here and there but if you like to ride your bike on dirt, it has been a pretty awful spring. Hopefully, and according to the weather forecast, today was the start of a long string of sunny and warm days. I look forward to fully appreciating these mild days, because in Utah it will be 90 and bone dry before you know it (or for me, before I'm done with chemo).

Speaking of chemo, my side effects continue to be mild this week. I would say that I'm functioning at at least 90% of normal for my daily activities and probably 50% of normal (or less) as an athlete. Yes, I am able to work, cook (although I don't:), tend house, tend myself, etc. No I am not able to drill it for 4+ hours on the bike. This makes for interesting conversation when reporting how chemo is affecting me to my doctors.

I am able to ride though. In fact, I rode off road three days last week, ran two days, hiked one day, lifted weights twice, and walked the puppy everyday. I will say that although a two hour ride feels great and is fantastic therapy, I am always spent afterwards. Today we headed down to Lambert Park so I could ride the course from last weekends race. It was fun, but by the end of two hours of singletrack bliss I was mentally and physically wasted. It was worth it though:)

(Photo credit Bonnie Schreck)

Hair update: Somehow, miraculously, my hair is hanging on. I am 'shedding' more than my puppy though:) I figure every extra day I have hair is one more day that I don't have to leave the house feeling like a cancer patient. I like that feeling.

Soapbox: I have already mentioned that next weekend is the Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure fundraiser. I will be participating as part of Jen's Jug-ernauts team. I want to thank everyone who has already donated to this team; the team is already well over the goal of raising $1000. However, I want to encourage everyone who has not already donated to consider. Even $5 can make a big difference. The truth is breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women in this country. Eventually, someone you love deeply will be affected by this disease. Although I realize that a lot of research dollars have/continue to be spent to research breast cancer, there is so much more that needs to be understood in order to provide treatment with the best possible outcome. For example, two women with Stage 2 (which is what I have) breast cancer may have two completely different cancers that respond very differently to treatment. Other tumor characteristics that may affect how a tumor responds to treatment include: nuclear grade, size of tumor, estrogen receptor status, progesterone receptor status, Her2/neu status, lymph node status, Oncotype dx score, type of cancer, tubule formation, nuclear pleomorphism, mitotic activity, lymph-vascular invasion, and I'm sure a lot more. I find it interesting that if you speak to three different oncologists, you will most likely get three different opinions on how to treat your cancer. Clearly there is so much more that needs to be learned.

If you would like to donate to our team, you can here:

http://slc.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/SLC_SaltLakeCityAffiliate?team_id=159706&pg=team&fr_id=2133

or please consider donating to someone else's team. The money all goes to the same place, and that is what really matters:)

On a lighter note: This is why my puppy is named Dizzy: